Due to the fact it rained most of May, and then Soph was gone through most of June, the summer has quickly descended upon us and is quietly slipping away. As I view every weekend at home to be a wasted opportunity, we've actually been doing quite a lot of late, but I haven't had much time to update the blog; that said, here are some of the until-now-unwritten highlights of the past month and a half...
Lausanne
Lausanne is a city about 40 minutes away by train; many guidebooks say it’s better than 
Geneva, and as we still hadn’t been there, I figured it was time to see what all the hype was about. A short ride later, I stepped out of the station platform prepared to be blown away, only to discover it was…well, ok. Don’t get me wrong – it’s still kind of a cool city – but I’m going to have to give props to Geneva, as there just seems to be more personality here.
That said, we had a good time walking around, and even better than that, shopping. While Geneva is a high-end shopper’s paradise, Lausanne is more of a middle-class shopper’s paradise. You’re not going to get anything original, but it won’t break the bank on you - so that was kind of fun, although it feels weird to go to another city and end up shopping when you’re there to sightsee. In our defense, we did sightsee first, so we fulfilled our travel obligations and didn’t have to feel guilty about it.
Chamonix
We used another one of our recent weekends to hit Cham
onix, better known as "the town by Mt. Blanc". Mt. Blanc is the highest mountain in Europe, which is kind of cool when you think about all the places around here with mountains. Anyway – it was a cute town and all that, but what was more important, is that we got to go to a French grocery store afterwards, as we had rented a car for the afternoon! Sad, I know – but we don’t get to see cool things like "selection" and "name brands" in Switzerland, especially not for the low prices the French are asking. Our friend Ryan, who came with us, stated it best when he said "it’s the first time I’ve been at a supermarket here where I’ve actually been able to make a choice." We actually lost Soph at one point because she heard there was bacon, and disappeared into the melee of consumers who were also buying stuff to sneak into Switzerland. Good way to spend a weekend! (Note: thanks Heather for the Chamonix pic, as we didn’t take any of our own!)
Paleo
Switzerland, for whatever reason, doesn’t get a lot of mainstream musicians touring through. My theory on this is one of simple demographics, as the population of all Switzerland like 10 million 
people, meaning even the biggest cities here are smaller than mid-level US cities. That said, what the Swiss do instead is they host massive musical festivals, the most famous being the Montreaux Jazz Festival. As that’s way over in Montreaux (a whole hour away!), and another festival (Paleo) is right outside of Geneva, we opted for the closer one, because we’re lazy.
The bands weren’t very good, but it was fun – it was hosted in a series of open fields with multiple stages. We met some friends, and probably spent more time just hanging out than actually listening to music; good stuff. I have to say it’s somewhat amusing to hear a Swedish band come to Switzerland and speak to the crowd in English; yet another reason to put off the ol’ French studies! The only other notable observation is that either I’m getting old at a more rapid pace than I expected, or kids here start smoking at a much younger age than they did in my day. I’m sure I saw 14-year olds with packs of cigarettes and cans of beer…although in Switzerland’s defense, they allow you to bring in your own food and drinks, which is awesome.
Fete de Musique
This was a little local thing that happened awhile back. It was random unknown bands playing in various parks throughout Geneva, all free. The idea is that for the entire weekend, anyone can go anywhere on the street and play music – there are stages set up to host bands, but you also get random people coming together and making noise. Great idea, and in a three-hour span, Sophia and I saw a Greek classical / folk ensemble, some electronic stuff, a French heavy metal band, a funk band, and an awesome Latin troupe who just set up in the middle of the street and worked the crowd like there was no tomorrow. Good weekend!
Next week: Family visiting!
Weekend Catch-up
